The world’s glimpse into Hamas chief Yahya Sinwars’ dying moments was tough and uncooked – wounded and cornered – he sat in a bombed-out Palestinian residence however but confronted down the Israeli drone filming him, hurling a stick at it together with his final strentgh.
Israel has tried to spin the scene as one in all victory, displaying Sinwar, the alleged architect of Oct. 7, damaged and defeated.
But many within the Arab and Muslim world – whether or not they help Hamas or not – noticed one thing totally different within the grainy footage: A defiant martyr who died preventing to the tip.
Clips from the launched drone footage went viral on social media, accompanied by quotes from Sinwar’s speeches during which he declared that he would reasonably die on the battlefield.
An oil portray of a masked Sinwar sitting proudly on an armchair was broadly shared, apparently impressed by the final picture of him alive.
“By broadcasting the last minutes of the life of Yahya Sinwar, the occupation made his life longer than the lives of his killers,” Osama Gaweesh, an Egyptian media persona and journalist, wrote on social media.
In Gaza, folks mourned his killing, whereas a handful hoped it may convey an finish to Israel’s genocidal battle triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas incursion. Across the Arab and Muslim world, and away from the devastation in Gaza, opinions diverse.
One factor, although, was clear. The footage was hailed by supporters and even some critics as proof of a person killed in a confrontation who at the least wasn’t hidden in a tunnel surrounded by hostages as Israel has stated he was for a lot of the final yr.
Three days after he was killed, Israel’s navy dropped leaflets in south Gaza, displaying one other picture of Sinwar’s physique.
“I don’t think there is a Palestinian leader of the first rank who died in a confrontation (like Sinwar), according to what the leaked Israeli version shows,” stated Sadeq Abu Amer, head of the Palestinian Dialogue Group, an Istanbul-based assume tank.
‘Martyrs of the resistance’
Unlike Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in his lodge room in Iran, or the chief of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group Hassan Nasrallah, bombed in an underground bunker by dozens of large munitions, Sinwar was killed whereas apparently preventing Israeli forces, greater than a yr after Tel Aviv launched its battle.
Iran, the Shiite powerhouse and a major backer of Hamas, went additional. It contrasted Sinwar’s dying with that of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Tehran’s archenemy.
In an announcement by Iran’s U.N. Mission, it stated Saddam appeared raveled out of an underground gap, dragged by U.S. forces whereas “he begged them not to kill him despite being armed.” Sinwar, then again, was killed within the open whereas “facing the enemy,” Iran stated.
In a strongly worded assertion, the Cairo-based Al-Azhar, the best seat of Sunni Muslim studying on the earth, blasted Israel’s portrayal of Sinwar as a terrorist. Without naming Sinwar, the assertion stated that the “martyrs of the resistance” died defending their land and their trigger.
In Israel, the military’s Arabic-speaking spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, described Sinwar as “defeated, outcast, and persecuted,” whereas many celebrated the news of his dying.
In the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, many remembered him with respect, whereas some expressed anger.
“He died as a fighter, as a martyr,” stated Somaia Mohtasib, a Palestinian displaced from Gaza City.
For Saleh Shonnar, a resident of north Gaza now displaced to the middle, tens of hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. “Hundreds, tens of senior leaders were martyred and replaced with new leaders.”
In Khan Younis, Sinwar’s birthplace, mourners in a bombed-out mosque recited the funeral prayer for a Muslim when the physique is lacking. Israel has seized Sinwar’s physique. Dozens of males and kids took half within the prayers.
And in Wadi al-Zayne, a city in Lebanon’s Chouf area with a major Palestinian inhabitants, Bilal Farhat stated that Sinwar’s dying made him an emblem of heroic resistance.
“He died fighting on the front line. It gives him some sort of mystical hero aura,” Farhat stated.
Source: www.dailysabah.com